LAS VEGAS, STRATOSPHERE TOWER, 2003

C-prints

Las Vegas, Stratosphere Tower, 2003- After midnight, as America’s cities gradually fall asleep, Axel Hütte begins to work. Since "the big cities never sleep" , there is no such thing as complete darkness and the stars only rarely have a chance against the neon and nightlife. The tone of Hütte’s ongoing series, a survey of American cityscapes at night, is anything but elegiac.At times, Hütte can be playfully deadpan, especially in his depictions of Las Vegas. Admirably, he steers clear of the gambling resort’s blatant vulgarity. Rather than overloading viewer's eyes with the gaudy excesses of the Strip, Hütte shoots the brightly illuminated main drag of Vegas from so far away that his images appear to zip across the entire width of a movie-screen-like print.